Aliens are a challenge again
Savant
Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
The more I play the patch, the more I like it. I didn't play alien too much before the patch since I could run around getting kills while eating a sandwich. The challenge just wasn't there.
That challenge is back.
Skulks actually have to 'look before they leap', if you'll pardon the pun. I think @Gorgenapper said it best when he remarked:
Aliens need to work as a TEAM now, something that some may not be used to. So instead of throwing up your hands, step up to the challenge.
Step up your game.
That challenge is back.
Skulks actually have to 'look before they leap', if you'll pardon the pun. I think @Gorgenapper said it best when he remarked:
Another part of the problem people are facing is that they have unintentionally made people who play marines that much more skilled by nature of the alien superiority. Given how hard it was to play, most people playing marines have developed far more tactical skill than aliens - who essentially just ran around the map and killed stuff with ease.Gorgenapper wrote: »Basically, to put it bluntly, alien easy mode has been turned OFF. What you're seeing and experiencing are withdrawal symptoms. ... Skulks were always designed around ambush tactics, hiding above doorways, in vents and such. They have 70h/10a, just NINE bullets should be able to kill one.
Aliens need to work as a TEAM now, something that some may not be used to. So instead of throwing up your hands, step up to the challenge.
Step up your game.
Comments
Let's talk in a week, and I can assure you that we'll see a big difference than from a mere 24 hours after the patch has dropped.
dun dun dun...........
This game should feel like a war on both sides. There should be a power struggle going back and fourth in each match (if a team is trying) but in order for this to happen mechanics need some tuning.
ROFL.
i've played about 15-20 games since update and always had positive kdr as skulk (and everything else) *flex*.
I have *one* mod, a crosshair, and that's it.
Aliens just were not hard before this patch. I played both sides and the challenge just wasn't there playing aliens before the patch. Kills should never be easy. You should have to work for them.
What I can say is that the movement of Skulks feels horrible now, and just saying LOL SKILL, is quite pathetic.
Since the patch, I refuse to play Skulk. They don't FEEL right. They used to be agile killers who were extremely deadly if you weren't careful... now they're fatter than ever.
I'm not against the animated fixes making it easier to hit skulks, but the acceleration changes make it unplayable.
I like my skulks fast and ferocious... not wheezing on the walls towards their next donut filled marine.
At least that'd explain why the marines can't even jog from Skylight to Topographical. Damn Commander should start dropping Donuts into the enemy hive.
The donuts are their pistols. Drop those and enter light speed. (We had a lot of marines covering the map before wall jumping skulks could get there. It was confusing.)
Except that they do. Lower acceleration means they are a lot more sluggish and unresponsive when turning, and there's that issue of losing all of your speed once you touch the ground. Just because they have the same base speed doesn't mean it isn't affected by other factors.
So you're going to continue to argue that because the max speed possible is still the same, skulks are not slower, regardless of the fact that they are slower to reach that max speed and have a very hard time maintaining due to a bug?
So, in summation... they're slower, but they're not slower.
I'm amazed how - despite playing for months - people said that the key to ending the marine imbalance was for people to 'learn to play'. Now that there has been a balance shift, all I'm hearing is "It's too hard!"
Seriously?
Take away people's easy kills and all of a sudden we get people posting "goodbye" in the forum.
Seriously?
Did people really think that the game would remain imbalanced towards aliens forever?
Though the unintentional thing should be fixed to see if people will stop whining about it.
It doesn't take that long for people to figure what is not fun.
Most people did not say this. Some did, but a large portion of people did not.
It is not "easy kills" that people are complaining about. It is the fact that reducing/limiting movement is never fun, regardless of how easy or hard stuff is to kill.
I've said it once on these forums and I'll say it again. I have played other games where the devs decided to reduce/limit movement mechanism and it has always caused a backlash in the forums, but especially for the competitive players.
No one thought this, but there are other ways that balance can/should be achieved than by limiting mechanics that people deem fun or give a skill depth to the game.
In any case, we will get back some of what us "complainers" were going on about. Not being able to maintain speed after hitting the ground is a bug.
I think the issue here is that there used to be a skill ceiling on a skulk that made them usable mid and late game. That ceiling is gone once jetpacks come out because of this nerf. You can no longer do the acrobatic jumps that you used to be able to do with gravity + leap to keep you in the face of a marine trying to flee with a jetpack. You probably don't see it if you're doing a 50-1 fade run, but you definitely see it if your fade gets popped if you made a mistake.
Yes the start game skulk is painful now, but somewhat comparable to how it was. To be honest most pubs had pub stars on them anyway, so you couldn't just go crazy with the skulk anymore anyway.
The main issue here is the skill floor got raised since now the skulks move around like in mud, so newbies get absolutely murdered and the skill ceiling got lowered since you can't really use the low friction off gravity anymore. Why are you so happy that people who spent a lot of time getting good with the skulk movement got absolutely nullified by this? Of course they are going to get angry as the motive behind this seems pretty sketchy. If they needed a base unit nerf, why not change glancing bites or mess with the damage cone some more. Why would you mess with a movement system that has been around literally since 220 or so? Competitive skulks were already tamed pretty well by good aiming marines. All this really did was make pub skulks a joke.
EDIT: Just noticed someone said momentum loss is a bug. If that's the cause then _whew_, I will reserve any more judgements until that gets fixed then.
... Right, so we should all be ground skulking, exactly the behavior that got everyone killed before and we learned to discourage rookies from doing.
Hey guys, if we all run in straight lines along the floor, we'll still move fast!
Awesome.
Note: It is a bug. The first thing you do is when you see the bug is laugh at Aliens and say how they have to get better. Not only is it hugely insulting to every alien player, this thread is the exact same as the people posting goodbyes. Whine.
Notice that I did say ANYTHING about the balance. I only said the movement was horrible and called you out for your whine. Remember the last time you had a whine and got called out? Here, let me get it.
What I meant to say, you are pathetic.
The early game changes we're certainly a skill floor increase, but something like this was pretty terribly needed. The way the early-game economic battle works is that marines typically need to get 1.5-2x more res flow than aliens to keep up in tech. However, many pub matches ended up with marines unable to push out and content more than a couple of RTs, letting aliens get the res advantage. Reverting it to where aliens have trouble pushing out and marines have freer range of the map works out much better economy-wise.
Well maybe if you did your job and pointed out rather obvious problems with certain changes, which, per chance, reduced the fun factor.. A THOUSAND FOLD... Maybe, just maybe, we won't get people posting "goodbye" Threads on the forum? HMM?
It's not easy kills people are crying about.
It's fun, or rather, the lack of fun, that has been INCREASINGLY GETTING WORSE, in the past few patches, since release.
And you think it's because of "Easy kills"?!
Seriously?
Edit:
Just thought i'd add, it's not just this update and those changes people are displeased with.
It's all the cumulative updates, and this one just tipped it over the edge.
Yes, there's a bug with maintaining momentum when hitting the ground from a wall jump, and yes this impacts your overall speed and therefore mobility / evasive nature.
But you should not let this discount the other factors that have lessened skulk effectiveness. Lowering the ground accel didn't simply make skulks less twitchy movement wise, it fixed horrid animation issues as well.
To send my point home, here's a quick reference video i made of just a singular animation issue that existed before this patch with wallwalking orientation:
I have 2 others regarding ground accel induced animation issues alone, and many more of other issues..
My point is this: Yes a bug leads to less maintained momentum from walljumping. Yes this makes you feel like a brick and probably interferes with overall effectiveness to a degree.
But fixes with hitreg (!) and wonky/spastic animations also have a great impact in regards to effectiveness, imo.
For instance, when you are chomping at the feet of a marine, are you landing from a walljump each time? Probably not. And even if you were, the difference in the loss of speed when converted to milliseconds equates to an almost negligible amount compared to average reaction times ~ 200 ms.
A more pertinent question is: Are you juking with strafe constantly when biting that marine? Probably.
Less wonky animation issues + less spastic change in direction + better hitreg = the impacting difference.
This is why the other important factors need to be considered, at the very least, imo.
And yes i agree it can feel like a brick due to that bug..
Yes, it is a bug. Yes, Savant's post is whining/gloating but: You'll also recall the marine warning system was also bugged. What happened? Certain aliens laughed at marines and told them learn to play. There is no alarm bug, you marines just suck.
So even though it is a bug and UWE should fix it quickly to even up the matchup, LEARN TO PLAY like marines had to until UWE fixes it. Lose games like marines did and wait for the considerably faster hotfix UWE will most likely put out. Where were you on your high horse when some people saying "L2P, Alert System is fine."
@Ironhorse: Thanks for that. I didn't even noticed it was that bad before. I also just noticed skulks turn their head before moving their bodies (unlike NS1). Probably was too busy rifle butting them away to notice before.